She said five fleets – granted conditional licenses last year – have begun trial runs and provided more than 120,000 rides.
The fleet operators are, Lee added, set to be issued official licenses.
The government had, in the initial stages of the push, said the five fleets would operate a total of 3,500 taxis and that they would need to reach 60 percent of full operations to be granted an official license.
One of the five operators, Amigo, said its fleet was only one tenth of that originally envisaged, while the others did not reveal the exact sizes of their fleets.
Lee said this does not mean the licensing threshold has been lowered and that factors such as service quality and driver training needs have to be taken into account.
She said driver recruitment has been difficult.
“We acknowledge that some of the drivers are currently not too familiar with this new concept of taxi fleets and they have been waiting to know more about the individual operation characteristics of the taxi fleets,” she said.
The Labour Department, she added, had conducted many recruitment sessions to assist with the hiring of drivers and would continue to offer support.
The fleet operators, she said, are in discussions with Octopus to join its “Easy Ride” service after the electronic payments system giant announced in early June that the service would enable people to book and pay for a ride on its app.
However, no specific timeline has been announced for the start of the one-stop hailing service..
